Jennifer Shaundeen Saunders
I'm a Film Media Literacy Educator, Producer, Videographer, Founder of People 4 People Productions, former NYC High School Film Teacher, Artist Educator and former Rutgers University Film Lecturer. I love visual communication. I deliver quality arts education programs to high school students that spark their creative and intellectual juices and grow change agents.
I recruit and train youth who have an interest in Media, Video Production, and Community Leadership. My program teaches students how to think critically about Media and how to discover hidden messages and meaning buried beneath narratives in the films, videos and television commercials we love. I don't teach students how to think about Media but how to read images so that they understand why people respond to Media the way they do.
My curriculum for teaching youth is streamlined for various ages and cultures, crosses multiple academic and technical disciplines and is fashioned to promote organic styled lifelong learning. The highly informative, creative exercises and activities I use heightens students' sensory perception skills and builds their artistic confidence. The relative and meaningful knowledge they gain is transferred to the development of videos and films they create that communicate effectively, powerfully and in a collective voice.
A mind stretched by a Film Media Literacy Education can never return to its old dimensions. Students who learn how to think critically about Media and how to use21st century digital video technology to create meaningful messages and new media are more capable of taking advantage of lifetime opportunities for themselves and their families. They are also more informed about the everyday issues and decisions they face.
Many of the students I've trained throughout my 30-year tenure as an Educator have since entered the Media Industry as young Media Industry professionals. As one former student Danny Ochoa has put it, " The lessons I learned about colors, shapes, numbers and camera shots and angles in my Film Media Literacy class have helped me as an adult to better interpret my environment. Those lessons were interesting to me then and I'm still learning from those lessons now.
